Across the Stars
by Misty 82
Summary: Just my own interpretation of the kiss scene in Knights of the Old Republic. m!Revan, alignment isn't really specified but we'll say he's LS, and Bastila.


"You've been patient with me, haven't you?" she began, smiling despite herself - though only ever so slightly. "I suppose… you deserve an answer. But you have to understand how difficult this is for me to say."

"Yes, I think so," he replied simply, his eyes closing in anticipation of what was about to transpire.

"With all of my training, I should have been able to control myself better than this. But you're - you're nothing like I expected… You're not like any man I've ever met before." Inhaling deeply, as if it was a chore for her to release every string of reserved words, she continued; "I find myself watching you when I don't mean to. I'm thinking about you when I don't want to –" she began to feel agitation rising up in her, though it was not directed at him, rather, at herself: for being foolish enough for this even to become a problem. "It's not supposed to be like this!"

"What… are you trying to say, exactly?"

"Every time I try to call on all my teachings to calm myself, they fail me. You have such power, such passion! I don't know if it's due to the bond between us, but…" he could feel her getting increasingly more nervous; their connection allowed him usually to only feel her most base emotions, for her mind was as fortified as a castle, but recently, the walls she had set up began slowly cracking down.

"…I'm drawn to you."

The navicomputer gave one of its usual whirrs, and the faint hum of the hyperdrive could still be heard even from across the ship; a kind of stagnant, dull air existed between the two young Jedi. The ship itself was relatively dark, especially during space travel. But every now and then he would notice that when an especially bright star flew by, a glimmer would develop in the arctic blue of her eyes.

"Are you interested in me, or my ability to use the Force, Bastila?"

"The Force is a part of you, as is your power. But that's not what attracted me to you," she grimaced at her use of the word 'attracted' – she instantly regretted it as it escaped her lips. But she had to let this out, if only for the sake of her own sanity. "It's more than that. Maybe it's the bond we share. It gives us a certain... intimacy. If I could, I would return to Dantooine. I need to be away from this bond of ours. I need to weaken it. I need to be anywhere but near you!" He stared intently, beckoning her to continue. How she wished she could simply put this behind her and move on! But she knew the impossibility of that and how, if they were to succeed in their mission, this had to be dealt with.

"But I can't… Malak must be stopped." Malak. Malak, the one thing standing in their way of having the time required to work out their… _situation_. Had the fate of the Republic not been hanging on their shoulders, perhaps this would have been easier to deal with. But that was not the case, and they both knew it.

Still, he had to lie a bit to give some console to his befuddled bondmate. The deceit came easy to him; he knew exactly where to break his sentence, exactly the tone to use. His inherit skill at it was slightly… unsettling. "You… could leave, if you needed to."

"And go where?" she retorted, almost humored by the suggestion.

Looking down to her feet, she suddenly became conscious of their surroundings; as hard as he was trying to seem as if he was not paying attention, Carth Onasi sat not six feet away from them, attempting to look frustrated by a faulty computer screen. Moving in closer, she whispered to the object of her own frustrations: "I think we should have a bit more privacy for this," motioning towards the nosy, yet good-natured Republic soldier. Understanding, at the very least, existed between the two as they walked, one after the other, into an empty cargo hold.

"You're stronger than I am."

As he opened his mouth to speak, she interrupted before he could form the words. "There's no point in telling me otherwise. You will be a great Jedi, I think… I hope," she paused, preparing her words as cautiously as ever. "In some ways, you make me feel weak… Like I'm caught up in the wake of our destiny. But in other ways… in many ways… You make me feel stronger. More alive."

"So… what does this mean for us?"

"I realize now…" she began, and something swung inside of her. Suppressing it as usual, she reminded herself: _No. I must remain objective. _"I realize now that this is only a part of the bond that we share." As she spoke the words, he could tell that she truly did not mean them; he didn't need the Force for that. Her eyes, icy as the snow of Hoth, betrayed her. "The Jedi Council surely realized this; they knew my loyalty to the doctrines of our Order would be tested on this mission.

"By facing and… overcoming… my feelings for you, I have learned a valuable lesson about control and the dangers of emotion," she paused, fearful that perhaps he had detected her false pretense. "I'm sorry if this was not what you wanted to hear. But I felt it was important for you to know that our… infatuation… was nothing more than a result of our powerful bond."

He scoffed, almost disgusted by her. She could feel her heart sink inside of her chest. "You're rationalizing, Bastila. You're afraid of the truth."

Her quick temper got the best of her and she shouted back: "You're the own who's afraid to face the truth! Malak must be stopped!" Pausing to regain herself, she looked away from him; that appearance, that face, those eyes that consistently drew her in.

She realized that all of her efforts were in vain; it was time to come clean. He was right; she _was _hiding from the truth. Defeated, she sighed "How can I do that if I let myself be blinded by my feelings for you?"

"I'm going to stop Malak, Bastila," he inched ever closer to her, "… but I want to do it with you at my side."

She felt so drawn in by the sheer determination in his voice that she could have let her emotions take control right then and there. She could have thrown herself forward into his arms, and succumb to all she had been holding –

_No. I'm a Jedi. I'm better than this. _But she allowed herself to glance up at him, his eyes staring straight into her own with the same unflinching resolve that she had seen him with time and time again. He was so right, so sure of himself all of the time that it made her doubt her own convictions.

"You… you mean it, don't you? B-But how can I be sure you aren't making a mistake?" Two voices conflicted in her head, a vicious battle between sense and sensibility. "I… I have to resist. I have to be strong, for the both of us…"

"You don't always have to be strong, Bastila… Give in just this once."

Words so enticing.

She stammered, still conflicted by her violent internal battle: it was like a scale, eternally unbalanced, each side constantly moving up and down. "But I don't…"

The scale teetered.

The battle raged on.

"I mean… I can't…" He moved himself nearer and nearer. "Malak will…"

They were centimeters apart.

He smiled, and all of her walls crumbled to the ground; the battle was won, the heaviest side of the scale dropped to the ground. Sensibility overcame her in a wave of passion as he whispered out to her: "Shut up and kiss me, you babbling fool."

Their lips crashed together, sloppy with the sheer desire and longing that existed between the two. Every small motion by one of them was mirrored by the other; their faces seemed to tessellate perfectly together. They stumbled together against a wall, him slowly reaching to remove her tunic…

_No._

She pulled herself away, and stood for a moment, staring at him in bewilderment. Her hair was messed, several flyaway pieces attempting to release themselves from the tight ponytails she pulled them into day in and day out. She attempted to regain her restrained and hardhearted demeanor, "We shouldn't have done that. The Jedi aren't allowed to fall in…"

They stood, staring at one another, captivated by the pure affection that existed between them. A new battle had begun in her mind; the war was not yet over.

"… love."

"It didn't feel so wrong to me," he replied sheepishly.

"It was a moment of weakness, when I… kissed… you," she stumbled over her words, finding it difficult to form even a slightly coherent sentence. "We shouldn't have…" he leaned in again, attempting to change her mind, but she pushed her body away from him.

"No."

He was rejected and broken, and she could feel it; she didn't need the Force for that.

"I'm sorry."

She knew as soon as she spoke those two small words that they could never possibly be sufficient to describe the severe remorse she had felt about leaving him at that very moment. She had made him feel guilty and piggish, and the problems in her mind had multiplied by tenfold. Searching for an exit, she departed through the large door they had entered in together, half-hoping he would come after her; that he would assure her that this was okay, that they could be _with_ one another and still defeat Malak. But the rules of the Order were clear in their disapproval of personal attachment, and she couldn't go against the Order.

To go against the Order would be to leave behind everything she had worked for. From the day when she was dragged from her father's arms to build a future for herself, she vowed to cut her way to the top of the Jedi. She couldn't let herself be stopped by some foolish puppy-love –

_But it's more than that, so much more. Its complexity is almost as deep as that of the Force – but it is almost as if the two are one. As if the Force is pushing us together. _How else could she explain why _she _was the one sent aboard the Dark Lord's starship, why _she _was the one with the inborn power of Battle Meditation, or why _he _had to be who he _was._

For days she isolated herself from him and the others, coming out only to exchange the smallest of formalities. After all, what could she say to him, given what had transpired between the two! Could she just pretend it never happened? That it didn't matter at all to her? Could she do that?

What she wanted more than anything was to be alone with her thoughts, to have the time to calmly weigh all of her options and come to a rational decision. But she knew she'd never be alone – never truly. She was confident that their bond was strong enough to communicate across galaxies, considering their history –

Warning sirens flooded the ship, still hanging in the dead of space. Still, over all of the noise, she could feel Malak's presence growing closer, and just outside her window she could see the _Leviathan _approaching them dead-on.

He was coming for her.


End file.
